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Professional theater couldn’t survive in central Ohio without patrons like these

By: Michael Grossberg

The Columbus Dispatch - January 12, 2014 02:31 PM

Professional theater can help build a city’s reputation and tourist
trade.

That routinely happens from New York to Chicago and other major
regional-theater centers across the country, but could it be starting to happen in Columbus?
Since 2001, David and Anna Lee Kurtz have visited town about five weekends a year to see
Shadowbox Live by driving several hours from Parkersburg, W. Virginia.
"Columbus is the closest city with professional theater to where we live," said Kurtz, 56.
"Shadowbox’s traditional shows, with sketch comedy and the incredible band, is what drew us
in, but we also love the musicals."

Exterior of Shadowbox Live’s Brewery District location on S. Front Street in the former Worly
Building. Photo by Alysia Burton

What keeps the couple coming back are the bonds they’ve forged with the performers at
Shadowbox, a resident-ensemble company that qualifies as professional because it pays its large
staff of actor-waiters and director-designer-administrators a living wage that allows full-time
efforts on fine-tuning productions. (Check out my trend piece on the rise of professional theater
in Columbus in this Sunday's Arts section.)
"It’s that personal connection with the performers," Kurtz said
"We got to know the performers because they’re seating us and bringing our food. It makes
Shadowbox such a wonderful place because they’ve become friends."

Guests enjoy dinner prior to a Shadowbox Live performance at Backstage Bistro in the Brewery
District. (Photo by Tessa Berg)
The couple also has seen theater on trips to New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and
count themselves fans of Saturday Night Live, which they describe as the closest thing to
Shadowbox.
"You don’t get to interact with those stars... At Shadowbox, they’re down-to-earth, not
stuck-up or arrogant. They’re multitalented in terms of comedy, singing, dancing, performing
instruments, cooking and mixing drinks," Kurtz said.
"Columbus has a gem with Shadowbox, a whole different form of theater. How it has evolved has
been nice and led us to explore Columbus area with shopping, the museums and Franklin Park
Conservatory, as we would never otherwise have done."

Of course, no professional theater can survive without strong support at home.|
Columbus residents Joan Simon and her husband Hugh Clark, regular patrons of CATCO and Short
North Stage, have supported professional theater for decades – going back to Players Theatre in the
1980s and early 1990s.
"We find professional theater transformational, teaching a lot about your self and other
people," said Simon, 66.
"Professional theater also has a big impact on the culture and economy," she said.
Hilliard resident Toni Gilbert, 60, enjoys professional theater because of its personal
impact.
"Sometimes you want to be entertained at a higher level. If it’s a professional theater, you
won’t walk away disappointed," said Gilbert, a subscriber to CATCO and Broadway tours.
Simon and Clark especially have enjoyed CATCO productions of the Iraqi War drama
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo and the generation-X musical
Avenue Q.
"These shows offered human situations and showed how people get into them and get out
of them," Simon said.
The couple also was impressed by the winter 2013 collaboration between CATCO and the Columbus
Museum of Art. The two groups synchronized their efforts so that the museum's first exhibit of
color-field painter Mark Rothko overlapped with the CATCO area premiere of
Red, a Tony winner for best play about a pivotal point in Rothko's life and career.

Kevin McClatchy (wearing glasses, right) as painter Mark Rothko and Tim Simeone as his
assistant Ken in the CATCO production of the play
Red. Photo credit: Red Generation Photography
"
Red was fabulous and the collaboration with the museum was pitch perfect," simon said.
Simon and Clark also love subscribing to three-year-old Short North Stage, which is
renovating the historic Garden Theater in the Short North.
"Their restoration of the theater is magical, Follies (the troupe’s debut production of a
rarely seen Sondheim musical) was magical and we loved Sunday in the Park with George," Simon said.
"There is a magic to good professional theater. When you enter the theater and are watching a
good play, you become immersed in it and you forget your daily activities and concerns and become
part of the acting."

The Garden Theater, home to the Short North Stage, on N. High St. in the Short North Credit:
Short North Stage
Meanwhile, Olde Towne East resident Lee Self, 24, has gone with friends to a half-dozen Short
North Stage shows.
"The professional status is crucial," said Self, co-owner of Buckeye Gold Company in Dublin.
"To have this new company that’s trying to revive a landmark and bring theater back to the
Short North is fantastic. Their diversity of shows is impressive and the quality of the casting
blows me away."